


On Deaf Ears

by ThoughtfulConstellations



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel (Movies), Marvel 616, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Barton Brothers, Childhood Memories, Clint Barton Childhood, Deaf Clint Barton, Gen, Post-Issue #15
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-16
Updated: 2014-10-16
Packaged: 2018-02-21 10:33:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2465084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThoughtfulConstellations/pseuds/ThoughtfulConstellations
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Barney remembers the first time Clint lost his hearing. He remembers the incident, he remembers the aftermath, and he remembers that he was to blame. Thing is, he feels he's to blame for this time, too. Set after Hawkeye #15.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On Deaf Ears

**Author's Note:**

> Loversandmadmen made the mistake of suggesting this idea to me. And I accidentally wrote a oneshot. Oops.
> 
> Let me know what you think!
> 
> Enjoy! =)

Barney remembers the first time Clint lost his hearing.

Clint had forgotten to take his plate into the kitchen after dinner because Barney had convinced him to go fishing.  They had an hour left before bedtime, and of course, the natural thing was to go fishing. Barney had always been a rough and tumble kind of boy, always running forward without thinking, barreling ahead and realizing later the kind of trouble he’d gotten into. Clint, on the other hand, had been more cautious.  Not by much, but he’d still lived with a closer kind of caution than Barney had.

After they’d come back from an hour of fishing—Barney had caught two fish, but Clint hadn’t caught a damn thing—their father had been right there waiting for them.  Barney can still remember the sound of his father’s fist colliding with the side of Clint’s head—he can remember the sound of Clint crying out, even though Clint had a strict rule to never make a sound while his father hit him.

Barney remembers the entire thing with disgustingly vivid detail. He doesn’t even have to close his eyes to remember Clint falling and smashing his head back into the tile floor. Even now, Barney has no idea if that had been his father’s intent—had he tried to harm Clint, _really_ harm the little boy?  Or was it all just a freak accident?  Barney doesn’t know, nor does he particularly spend a lot of time thinking about his father’s intentions in beating up his little brother for leaving out a damn dish on accident.

What matters is that Clint’s head had collided into the floor so hard that an ambulance had been called.  Their mother had actually stood up for her little boy as soon as she’d seen the blood and realized that Clint wasn’t waking up; that was probably what had worried Barney the most.  His little brother might have been flimsy and small, and sometimes he cried more than he should have, but he was resilient.

Barney remembers everything about the whole damn event, but the one thing he remembers most of all is Clint afterwards.  Clint hadn’t understood the fact that he couldn’t hear at first; he hadn’t understood it, and he’d cried, and Barney had wanted to tell him to shut up, but he hadn’t been able to help thinking that if he were in Clint’s position, he would have cried, too.  But thank God, he wasn’t.

Technically, Barney knew, Clint’s deafness had come as a result of him. If he hadn’t convinced the gullible little muskrat to go fishing with him, Clint would have remembered to put up his plate.  If he’d stepped in right before his father had hit Clint, Clint wouldn’t have bandages wrapped around his head.  He tried to think of a way to apologize to Clint for doing this to him, but his young self hadn’t been able to come up with the words, so he’d allowed that guilt to eat away at himself.

After Clint had been released, Barney had stolen books from the library. ASL books.  Together, he and Clint had sat in the barn beside their house, and they’d learned how to sign.  The both of them.  Clint hadn’t wanted to, had insisted that he would get his hearing back tomorrow and didn’t need to learn how to sign, but eventually, he’d given in and learned how to communicate with his hands instead of his voice.

And yes, slowly but surely, Clint’s hearing had come back, and he’d stopped signing, but Barney had never returned the ASL books to the library. He hadn’t known why at the time, but now, as Barney watches his brother lethargically open a new bottle of beer, he realizes that he’s always been afraid that something like this would happen again. Even in his young child mind, he’d been scared that their father would hit Clint again, and Clint would lose his hearing, and they’d have to keep signing.

“This is a fucking nightmare,” Barney murmurs out loud, running a hand over his face.  Clint can’t hear him since Clint is, well, deaf, but Barney wishes Clint would turn around and make some smartass comment or to tell him to go fuck himself. Any kind of sign that he’d heard Barney’s asshole statement.

And really, this _is_ a nightmare for Barney.  This whole situation is a flashback to Clint’s first time going deaf, and Barney can’t stop those old feelings of guilt from bubbling up.

“Is he just ignoring everyone?” Simone asks.  Barney glances up at her from his wheelchair and lets out a deep sigh.

“Yeah,” he says. “Prick thinks by pretending none of us are here, we won’t be.”

“How’s he doing?  He looks worse than he did in the hospital.” Simone lowers her voice, forgetting that Clint is _deaf_ —he couldn’t hear her even if he wanted to.  Clint takes his beer and exits the room without so much as a glance in their direction. Simone has only been there for about 30 seconds, but it’s clear that he’s not going to acknowledge her presence. Barney has to at least give it to his brother that he’s being smart about it—Simone probably won’t pick up on the subtle things Clint had done to make it seem like he genuinely hadn’t seen her standing there, but Barney had noticed it.  Barney knows all of Clint’s little tricks—hell, he probably _taught_ Clint over half of his little people-avoiding tricks.

“He’s…uh…he’s Clint,” Barney lamely replies.  He looks up at Simone again.  Surprisingly, he’s gotten used to this whole wheelchair thing relatively easily. Sometimes he doesn’t mind it, but goddamn, it sure does make the stairs difficult.  Thank God for Simone, he thinks, who has been getting groceries for both him and Clint for the past week.

“Oh, don’t I know it,” Simone remarks. “He’s not like anyone else I’ve ever met.”

Barney snorts almost crudely. “Ain’t that the truth.”

They’re quiet for a few moments as they both look in the direction Clint disappeared in just moments ago.  The silence isn’t uncomfortable, but Barney isn’t really thinking about the possible awkwardness because he’s too busy trying to keep his guilt from spilling over in front of Clint’s neighbor.  Finally, Simone speaks. “How are _you_ doing?”

Barney smirks at her. “Oh, I’m doing swell.  I’m dancing so much I can hardly walk.”

“That’s not funny,” Simone says, but Barney just shrugs in response.

“It could be worse,” he replies.  She lifts her dark eyebrows and tilts her head to the side, folding her arms over her chest as she leans against the doorframe.

“How are you the optimistic one?” she asks with interest. “And how hasn’t Clint told any of us that he has an optimist brother?”

“Little brother has a lot he doesn’t talk about.” Barney’s tone comes out more bitter than anything else, and he looks away in an attempt to cover up how much he’s actually revealed by accident.  Simone is quiet, and so is he.

“You look like one of my kids when they’ve done something they shouldn’t have,” she says suddenly.  Barney shoots her a rueful look and shakes his head.

“Nah,” he says.

“I know guilt when I see it.  You and Clint wear the same expressions, and if there’s something your brother looks 90% of the time, it’s guilty,” Simone counters, a brief smile on her face. Barney feels that he should invite Simone inside, but he figures that she’s so much a part of Clint’s every day life that she feels comfortable enough to come inside if she plans on staying long, so he doesn’t.  Besides, now that the conversation has taken this turn, he kind of wants to just go back inside. Dealing with sullen Clint seems a little bit more appealing than talking about his _feelings_ and _emotions_ with Clint’s neighbor.

“Eh.” He shrugs. “Shit happens.”

“You don’t have to tell me, but there’s nothing you should feel sorry for. Ok?” Simone gives him a long, hard look, and for just a very brief second, Barney kind of believes her. But he doesn’t. No matter what Simone tells him, he won’t believe her because she doesn’t know the truth.  If he had gone after Clint immediately, he would have gotten there just a few seconds sooner and would have been able to stop that fucker who deafened his little brother.  If he had run just a little bit faster, he might have been able to stop those arrows from driving into Clint’s ears.  Who gives a fuck about the wheelchair, he thinks to himself.  He can adjust; he’s always been able to adjust. But Clint?  Clint has more trouble with adjustments than he does.

“Ok,” he says.  Simone seems to be satisfied because she nods and straightens her posture so she’s no longer leaning against the door.

“The kids have been asking about both you and Clint.  They love seeing you two around,” she says, changing the subject. Barney smiles at her, this time a genuine smile, and he shrugs as if to say no big deal.

“I’ll be around to see them soon,” he replies. “You’ve got yourself a bunch of wildcats there.”

Simone laughs appreciatively and lifts her hands in a guilty shrug. “I know. What can I say?  Well…I’ll see you around, Barney.  Take care of yourself, and kick some sense into that brother of yours.”

“I’m trying, Simone.  I’m really trying,” Barney answers, and he pushes his wheelchair back from the door just enough so that he can shut it without it clipping his wheelchair. He gives a mock salute in Simone’s direction before she turns over her shoulder and walks down the hall, and he’s alone again.

Well, technically, he’s not alone.  Clint’s in the other room, but considering the kind of company Clint is these days, Barney considers himself to be alone.  Fucking son of a bitch won’t communicate more than an eye roll, a shrug, a nod, or a head shake, and it’s been driving him crazy.  He doesn’t know how much more of this he can take, not only for Clint’s sake, but for his own sake.

He wheels himself into the living room and eyes the couch, contemplating trying to move himself from the chair into the couch, but he decides against it. Too much movement is painful, and he’s trying to keep as much of a pain-free life as possible. Well, at least _physically_ pain-free, anyway.  There isn’t much else for him to go other than the kitchen, the living room, or Clint’s room, and he knows that if he tries to go in Clint’s room, he’ll just get frustrated with his stubborn younger brother.

“Exactly like before.  Fucking exactly,” he says out loud, just to hear the sound of his own voice. Since Clint isn’t speaking, and Kate took Lucky, there’s no fucking sound anywhere in this apartment, and Barney can’t stand that.  He also can’t stand what’s going on with Clint, but he doesn’t have any kind of control over that.

Barney wants to wheel right into Clint’s room and order him to pull himself together.  He wants to remind Clint of when Clint was little and had lost his hearing.  He wants to remind Clint that he doesn’t have to let this define him because it _doesn’t_. But he doesn’t know how to say all of that.  He and Clint have always kind of sucked with words.

“I’m sorry, Clint,” he says, speaking out into the dead silent apartment. He hates himself for waiting to see if Clint will come out, annoyed look on his scruffy face and a beer in his hand, going, “What the hell are you saying, Barn?”

But of course, Clint doesn’t come out, and Barney feels like a fucking asshole for being the kind of fucking asshole to say sappy shit out loud in an apartment when he’s technically alone.  He snorts angrily—again just to make some kind of sound to fill up the soundlessness—and he starts wheeling himself to the kitchen.  Might as well do something useful like make another pot of coffee. Or maybe he’ll even grab himself a beer.

“Fuck you, Clint,” he grumbles to himself.  He isn’t really angry at Clint.  Well, he’s angry at Clint, but he’s angrier at himself. “Not my fault my ass. My fucking ass.”

He wonders if Clint could hear, would he tell his little brother about how guilty he feels?  Would he tell Clint about how he should have been there and stopped that son of a bitch from hurting him?  Would he reveal all the guilt he’s carried inside him for years?

No, Barney decides as he opens the refrigerator door and pulls out a bottle of beer.  He wouldn’t do that. He would just act like things were normal. He pops the bottle open with his bare hand and takes a long sip of the cool liquid as he thinks about what Simone said to him.  She’d told him he didn’t have anything to feel sorry for.  Barney lowers the bottle and looks at it, pressing his lips together firmly.

“Fun thing is, Neighbor-Lady,” Barney murmurs, raising the bottle up to the light to see the brown glass lighten up with the streams of fluorescents glowing through it. “You ain’t know everything.”


End file.
